


A Day In The Country

by fhsa_archivist



Category: Merry Gentry - Laurell K Hamilton, The Professionals
Genre: Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-06-08
Updated: 2004-06-08
Packaged: 2019-02-05 13:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12795957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhsa_archivist/pseuds/fhsa_archivist
Summary: Bodie and Doyle have a day out, but nothing goes according to plan





	A Day In The Country

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

Doyle leaned over and opened the passenger door and Bodie got into the car, sliding onto the seat with a curved spine and a sigh of exhaustion. 

 

"I don't believe this," Doyle said. "I really do not believe this! Six bloody weeks without a break, and then when he condescends to give us a weekend off he manages to make us feel beholden to him for it. I dunno how 'e does it." He glanced at his partner, slumped in his seat with his eyes closed. "What are you goin' to do?" 

 

"Go to bed. I'm knackered." 

 

"Whose bed?" 

 

"My own, lover. To sleep. Only thing I'm good for at the moment. The spirit is willing and all that, but I couldn't raise a smile tonight, never mind anything ese." 

 

"In that respect, mate, you are not alone," Doyle said with feeling. 

 

After several minutes silence Bodie opened one eye. "All right, then, are you going to take me home or tuck me in right here?" 

 

Doyle shook himself out of his daze of weariness. "I'm not goin' to tuck you in at all. It's going to take me all my time tucking meself in." He switched on the ignition and drove out of the car park at a much more sedate pace than usual. "You fancy a drink on the way? To settle the nerves?" 

 

Bodie opened the other eye. "You buying?" 

 

"I might be." 

 

"In that case, I'm drinking." 

 

An hour - and two pints of bitter, into one of which Bodie almost fell asleep and drowned - later, Doyle arrived home. The flat, which had been shut up tight for the past seventy-two hours, was hot, stuffy, and smelt stale. There was no hot water for a shower. Too tired to care enough to be annoyed, Doyle muttered, "To hell with it!" and flung open a couple of windows, dropped his clothes on the floor in a heap, and fell into bed unwashed. 

 

What felt like a few minutes later, he opened his eyes to discover that eight hours had actually passed, it was 5.30am, and despite his best efforts he could not get back to sleep. Eventually, after much tossing and turning and some very colourful imprecations, he admitted defeat and got up. 

 

Showered, shaved, dressed and breakfasted, dishes washed and put away and the flat tidied, he glanced at his watch. 

 

It was still only 8.15. 

 

Right, that did it! Why should Bodie be allowed to lie in his pit snoring when other people couldn't? 

 

He dialled the familiar number and waited. On the eighth ring the receiver at the other end was lifted, dropped with a clatter and lifted again, and a decidedly grumpy and half asleep voice said, "Unnghh?" 

 

"This is Wake Up Calls Incorporated," Doyle said brightly. "It is 8.16am on a lovely, hot, sunny morning..." 

 

With split-second timing he removed the receiver from his ear, just in time to avoid a perforated eardrum from the crash with which the one at Bodie's end was replaced. After a count of ten he dialled again. Fifteen rings, this time. 

 

"I am going to kill you, Doyle," Bodie said. "What the hell do you want at this hour?" 

 

"I couldn't sleep," Doyle said plaintively. "I've been up for hours." 

 

There was a short expressive silence, the kind that spoke volumes. 

 

"I think I'll disembowel you," Bodie told him conversationally, "with blunt knives..." He continued at some length, warming to his theme, before a pause for breath gave Doyle an opening. 

 

"I thought we might go for a picnic. Out in the country. Get away early and make a day of it." The silence that greeted this was so long that eventually he was forced to add, "Bodie? You still there? You haven't gone back to sleep on me, have you?" 

 

"Chance would be a fine thing!" Bodie retorted. "You mean to say, that after all we've been through in the past six weeks, the first chance I get of a lie-in you wake me up at this indecent, god-forsaken hour to invite me on a picnic, f all things? You've done it at last. You've finally flipped, mate!" 

 

"It'll be nice," Doyle said persuasively. True, he'd only thought of it thirty seconds ago, but the idea was growing more appealing by the minute. 

 

"Peace...quiet...nobody shouting or shooting at us...fresh air..." 

 

"What's that?" 

 

"It's what you breathe without ten million other people having breathed it first. You know the stuff - there're no exhaust fumes in it, and it smells of grass and trees and flowers." 

 

"And manure, probably." 

 

"Don't be like that!" Doyle protested. "C'mon, Bodie, you'll like it when you get there, you know you will." 

 

"We'll get piles from sitting on damp grass." 

 

"There hasn't been any rain for nearly four weeks. We're in the middle of a heat wave, or hadn't you noticed?" 

 

"I've been too busy getting shot and shouted at," Bodie said. Despite his protests he sounded brighter and marginally more interested. "I'm still knackered. Why don't you go on this picnic by yourself, and I'll just stay here in bed?" 

 

"Oh, ha-ha, very funny!" Doyle told him. "I'll be round to pick you up in half an hour. Be ready." 

 

He hung up, and went to raid his cupboards for plates, cutlery and other necessities, whistling cheerfully. 

 

A more expensive that expected visit to the Deli down the road dampened his enthusiasm a bit. However, packing his purchases into the car he had to confess that the kind of picnic he remembered from childhood, consisting of soggy sandwiches, biscuits and a bottle of lemonade, would hardly make much of an impression on a partner whose plaintive cries of 'I'm starving!' and variations thereof were a byword in the corridors of CI5. 

 

Bodie was waiting, leaning against his front door jamb, immaculate and looking good enough to eat in grey slacks and pale blue short- sleeved open-neck shirt. He climbed into the car, and promptly tied himself into a knot in an attempt to peer into the rear seat. 

 

"So, where is it?" 

 

"Where's what?" 

 

"The grub. Can't have a picnic without grub, y'know." 

 

"I know. It's in the boot." Doyle gazed pointedly at Bodie's empty hands. "Where's your contribution, then?" 

 

Bodie smiled seraphically. "I'm a guest. You invited me, remember? Guests don't have to contribute. But just to shut your face, I'll buy the booze, okay?" 

"Okay." Doyle put the Escort into gear and moved off. 

 

Bodie settled himself comfortably. "Where exactly are we going for this picnic?" 

 

"You'll find out when we get there," Doyle told him, skilfully avoiding a suicidal dog, and immediately afterwards a Volkswagen Beetle the driver of which appeared to be either blind or equally tired of life. 

 

"All right then, don't tell me," said Bodie huffily. "Shall I put the blindfold on now, or leave it till later?" When this sally was not dignified with an answer, he added, in a sudden change of subject, "You didn't give me time for breakfast, and I'm starving." 

 

Doyle sighed. Without taking his eyes off the early morning traffic, he leaned over and opened the glove compartment. "Funny, I thought you might be. There are Mars bars and various other things in there. Try stopping your gob with some of those." 

 

Bodie shot him a theatrically pained look that was ignored with the ease of long practice, and proceeded to rummage in the revealed treasure trove. Some considerable time, and a lot of contented munching later, he crumpled a Mars wrapped and chucked it out of the window with a fine disregard for Keeping Britain Tidy, and commented, "I certainly hope you know where you're going, sunshine. I've been lost since we came off the motorway." 

 

"You've got as much directional sense as a deaf bat, you know that?" Doyle said. "How'd you ever find your way around in the jungle?" 

 

"I didn't. I got lost there too," Bodie confessed. "Except when I'd been told where I was supposed to be going, of course." He raised an innocently enquiring eyebrow. 

 

Doyle grinned. "Can't bear bein' kept in the dark about anything, can you?" he asked. Bodie shook his head agreeably. "All right, I'll tell you. We're going to Upton St. Clement." 

 

During the ensuing silence Doyle negotiated the car around a sharp double bend and up a steep, winding hill while he waited for the expected response. It was not long in coming. 

 

"Oh goody! Upton Whatsit, just the place I've always wanted to go to. Now that you've told me where, would you mind telling me why?" 

 

Doyle assumed an expression of extreme patience. "But I've told you already: for a picnic..." 

 

"Ray!" Bodie said dangerously. 

 

Doyle grinned reminiscently. "Okay. Because I used to visit there when I was a kid. Me Aunt Katy married a farmer, and I stayed with them every summer. They thought I was too skinny, needed fresh air and feedin' up on good country food. I loved every minute of it. Just like heaven, it was; all that space, runnin' wild... I 'ad this favourite place, used to spend all day there sometimes, take sarnies and stuff, go fishing with a stick and a bit of string and a bent pin. Never caught anything, of course, but that didn't matter. I thought I'd take you there for the picnic." 

 

There was another long silence. Then Bodie said softly, "Why have you never told me about any of that before?" 

 

Doyle glanced sideways and found himself being regarded by a pair of blue eyes as soft and affectionate as the tone of voice. As always, that expression of Bodie's destroyed him. He looked hastily back at the road ahead. 

 

"I've told you a damned sight more about my past than you've ever told me about yours, mate. You're the original clam." 

 

Bodie looked offended. "That's not true! I've told you lots of things..." 

 

"And the stories get bigger every time you tell 'em. If Cowley ever gives you the boot, you'll be able to make a fortune writing fairy tales. Hans Christian Bodie, that's you!" Bodie's offended expression intensified, and Doyle chuckled as he swung the car around a tractor and trailer and two teenagers on horseback. "Don't worry, I gave up on trying to ferret out your little secrets long ago. I'll wait until you want to tell me about them." And then, with a complete change of tone, "Hey! Look, we're almost there. That's Upton Hill." 

 

"Your Aunt and Uncle still live here, do they?" Bodie asked. 

 

"Nah, they both died a few years back while I was still in the Met," Doyle answered. "The farm was on the other side of the village, the river side. It wasn't a very big place, only a few acres rented from the Manor estate. Some dairy cows, pigs, chickens...pretty small stuff really, but this city kid thought it was marvellous." They rounded a blind bend and Doyle's mouth fell open. "Bloody hell! Tell me I'm hallucinatin'!" 

 

"You're hallucinating," Bodie said obediently, and then spoilt the effect by adding, "About what?" 

 

"About that!" 

 

Bodie stared out through the windscreen and tried to figure out what it was Doyle was upset about. They had arrived without warning at one end of Upton St. Clement's main - and apparently only - street. Bordered on either side by houses in a variety of styles - there were a dozen r so very pretty heavily thatched old cottages, and two or three larger houses clad in ivy and Virginia creeper, but most appeared to be more modern bungalows and villas, all surrounded by riotously colourful gardens - it widened out into a hexagonally shaped area proclaiming itself on a signpost to be Upton Green, before narrowing again suddenly and disappearing from sight beyond an ancient stone church. 

 

The Green itself was a large area of smoothly manicured grass decorated by wooden seats, rose filled flowerbeds and, in the exact centre, a merrily splashing fountain topped by a statue of Pan playing his pipes. Apart from the church and another old stone building labelled 'Village Hall, 1750', it was surrounded by an assortment of shops including a small supermarket, and other businesses: a saddler, a dentist, a doctor's surgery, a solicitor's office, an Olde Tea Shoppe, and the obligatory pub whose swinging sign bore a painting of a very fat, impossibly pink pig surmounted by an extremely scrawny cockerel which announced to the world at large that it was 'THE PIG 'N' CHICKEN'. 

 

There were a number of people about, mostly around the supermarket. The Tea Shoppe had some tables and chairs set out on the pavement and appeared to be doing a roaring trade. The benches on the Green were also occupied, and children and dogs played on the grass. There was also a fair bit of coming and going around the Village Hall. 

 

To Bodie who, admittedly, was no expert on English village life, it all looked reasonably normal, and hardly the stuff of which hallucinations are made. He said so, and was rewarded by one of his partner's most ferocious scowls. 

 

"It isn't the way I remember it at all!" Doyle almost wailed. "It used to be so quiet and pretty, now look at it! All those people...and a bloody Tescos...and those dreadful new houses... It's all changed!" 

 

"Things have a nasty habit of doing that, sunshine," Bodie said. "I think it's called progress or something. You know: tempus fugit, and all that sort of stuff. How long has it been since you were last here, anyway?" 

 

"I was thirteen." 

 

"There you are then!" Bodie said triumphantly. "Nothing stands still. Nothing stays the same, however much you may want it to." 

 

Doyle's scowl deepened. He brought the Escort to a halt outside the pub, and glowered at the grass and its occupants. "Used to be a duck pond there," he muttered resentfully. "I fell into it once." 

 

"Must've been thrilling for the ducks, that." 

 

Doyle treated that remark with the contempt he felt it deserved, and transferred his disapproval to the pub. "And will you look at what's been done to the poor old 'Pig 'n' Chicken'!" 

 

Bodie looked. With that complaint he was in complete agreement. He hated tarted-up pubs, and this one had been assaulted by an expert whose so-called taste ran to lots of intricately convoluted wrought iron coupled with glaringly bright primary colours for the paintwork. 

 

The sight of it made his eyes ache, and with the evidence of the outside before him he shuddered to imagine what the interior might be like. 

 

"It isn't very pretty, is it?" 

 

"Not pretty? It's bloody criminal, that's what it is! Whoever did that ought to be hanged, drawn and quartered." 

 

Bodie stared at him admiringly. "God, Raymond, I never thought you had it in you to be so vicious!" 

 

Doyle's glare faded into the beginning of a reluctant grin. "Oh all right, I am going over the top a bit. But it's such a disappointment, Bodie. This place was so beautiful when I was a kid, and I loved it. I've carried a picture of it in my mind for years, and I thought... I wanted to share it with you, but I can't because it's all been changed - and spoilt. I'm sorry, love." 

 

"It's hardly your fault if things are different from what you remember. I told you, everything changes." Bodie stretched out a lazy hand and patted Doyle's knee. "I'd love to have shared your memories, Ray, but I'd rather have you than them any day." 

 

Doyle's throat tightened. Despite their having been lovers for months now, it was very seldom that Bodie said anything like that outside of bed, still preferring to hide his deeper feelings behind the tried-and-true mask of flippancy. Doyle went along with it but, like now, he treasured every time the mask slipped. 

 

Suddenly, he realised that the gently patting hand had acquired new purpose and was beginning a slow, caressing glide up his denim-clad thigh. He glanced sideways, startled. Bodie's expression was one of cherubic innocence, but there was a gleam of mischief in the midnight blue eyes. Doyle cast a panic-stricken look at the passers-by, and clamped one of his own hands down on the wanderer, curbing its progress. He knew that expression too well. 

 

"Stoppit! You'll get us arrested!" 

 

"Nonsense, I've heard they're very broadminded out in the country. It's all that living close to nat... Will you look at that!" Tone filled with reverence, all thoughts of teasing Doyle instantly forgotten, Bodie leaned forward to peer through the windscreen. 

 

Doyle followed the intent gaze, and his lips twitched. The pub was at last opening up for business - by a tall redhead whose short, low-cut, form-fitting dress left very few of her considerable assets to the imagination. Barmaids had always been Bodie's favourite prey, and his change of lifestyle had done nothing to diminish his healthy interest in the species. Chatting up birds was as much a part of him as breathing and Doyle, who often felt insecure about other things in life but never about the feelings he and Bodie shared for each other, had neither the intention nor the desire to try to stop what was essentially a harmless piece of fun. He knew it, the birds knew it, and Bodie knew it - so there was no problem. 

 

He settled back comfortably in his seat and said, "All right then Casanova, go on; go practise your chat-up technique. You haven't used it for ages so it must be getting a bit rusty." 

 

"Never!" Bodie denied, offended. "That sort of thing is all a part of the natural charm I was born with, so I don't need to practise." He eyed Doyle consideringly, and then added with the air of one making a great sacrifice, "In your case, though... Maybe you should go...?" 

 

"No way, mate!" Doyle said. "I wouldn't dream of it; you saw her first. Besides, you said you'd buy the booze." 

 

"Skinflint!" Bodie grinned and got out of the car with a theatrical sigh. "Oh well, once more into the breach dear friends..." 

 

Ten minutes later he reappeared, bearing two six-packs of beer and wearing an all too familiar self-satisfied smirk that said it all. 

 

"That's a bit of all right in there, sunshine. Could've really scored if I'd still been so inclined. Just as well you didn't go after all, she would've eaten someone like you for breakfast." 

 

"Oh yeah?" 

 

"Yeah. Needs the touch of a master hand, that one does. Are we going to eat soon? I'm famished!" 

 

"Must be a record, that," Doyle told the church as they drove past it. "It's at least an hour since he last mentioned food. Don't panic, mate, I'll feed you right after I've shown you the farm. Always assuming, of course, that it hasn't been turned into a dogs' home or something," he added grouchily. 

 

It had been turned into a small private housing development instead. 

 

Mouth open and eyes huge with shock, Doyle stared at the orderly rows of red brick chalet-style bungalows, each one only marginally different from its neighbours. 

 

"I don't believe this! I really do not believe it! It has to be some sort of nightmare. I can't have woken up this morning; I have to be dreaming. Owwww! What'd you go and do that for?" he demanded, rubbing vigorously at the spot on his arm where Bodie had pinched him - hard. 

 

"Just checking," his partner said unrepentantly. "Sleepwalking is one thing, but I don't want you driving me if you're still in the Land of Nod. Nope, if that yelp was anything to go by you're awake all right." 

 

Well I wish I wasn't! There used to be a bloody great chunk of my childhood out there under those houses, Bodie. The best part of it. All those summers when I came down here from Derby meant an awful lot to me. Now it's all gone, all lost..." 

 

Bodie's eyebrows drew together at the disconsolate tone. "You really mean that, don't you? Those visits must have been quite something to make you feel like this. Why don't you tell me about them?" 

 

"Why should I? You don't want to know." 

 

"I don't usually ask for things I don't want," Bodie said determinedly. He slid lower down in his seat, propped one foot on the dashboard and closed his eyes. "Go on, tell me." 

 

"You'll be bored silly..." Doyle was suddenly reluctant to do what he had planned to do anyway when the idea for the picnic had first occurred to him. 

"If I get bored, lover, you'll be the first to know all about it. I don't generally suffer in silence, do I? For once in your life don't argue. How old were you when you first came here?" 

 

Doyle shrugged and bowed to the inevitable. "Seven." 

 

Once started, he couldn't stop. To begin with, Bodie prompted with an occasional question; then as his presence was forgotten and the stream of memories poured out more fluently, he just relaxed, listening. Doyle had a true artist's eye and the ability to paint pictures with words as well as brushes. Riverside Farm and its occupants, and the summer holidays of the small boy who had grown up to be his partner and the one person in the world whom Bodie truly loved, came to life on the inner screen of his closed eyelids. 

 

The quiet, reminiscent voice continued creating its magic for a long time before trailing off into silence. When Bodie opened his eyes he found Doyle staring at him with an expression of irritated embarrassment. 

 

"Thought you were going to tell me when you got fed-up? I didn't mean to put you to sleep, you know." 

 

"Sleep? I wasn't asleep; I was years away." Bodie pushed himself upright and regarded Doyle with complete seriousness. "Don't understand what you're going on about, Ray. All that stuff about losing your childhood is nonsense. Just because they've built a few houses... All the important bits are where they really matter." At the other man's puzzled look he tapped a forefinger gently on the side of Doyle's head. "In here, you idiot! Memories, sunshine - memories. 

 

Nothing is ever really lost if it isn't forgotten, and you've forgotten nothing. Whatever happens, whatever changes, as long as you go on remembering the places and people you knew and loved and the things you did they will always exist. And now you've told me everything, so there are two of us to keep it all alive, and that makes it doubly safe." 

 

Doyle swallowed a sudden constriction in his throat. Whatever reaction he might have expected to his ramblings about his childhood, that had not been it. 

Trust Bodie to surprise him...! 

 

So perfect was the hard-man, don't-give-a-damn-about-anything-or-anybody public image, that a lot of people who thought they knew him would have been startled by that piece of Bodie philosophy. Even Doyle, closer to him than anyone else, was only slowly coming to plumb the depths of the real Bodie, the caring, understanding man behind the mask, and to realise that he had joined the ranks of the privileged few who brought it to the fore: small children, old people - and Ray Doyle. He blinked away moisture that was blurring his eyesight. 

 

"You've done it again, d'you know that? Just when I start believing I know what goes on inside that head of yours, you do or say something like that and I'm right back at square one. You never cease to amaze me." 

 

"Yeah, well...'s my motto, that: always keep 'em guessing." Bodie retreated hastily from unwanted self-revelation with practiced ease. Old, long-ingrained self-protective habits died hard and slowly, even with Doyle. He shied back, startled, when a quick kiss was planted in the general region of his right ear. 

"Oi, now who's going to get us arrested? What'd you go and do that for, you idiot?" 

 

"Oh, just because you're Bodie. And because there's an awful lot more to you than meets the eye. And I love you." Doyle smiled, one of those heart-stopping efforts so different from his usual urchin grin that always did extraordinary things to the pit of Bodie's stomach. This one was no exception. "C'mon, let's go eat. And listen, you never know your luck, mate. The way things are goin' today they may have built a Home for Buxom Barmaids on my favourite picnic spot. If they 'ave, I'll just go home and leave you to it!" 

 

"I'll hold you to that," Bodie threatened, chuckling, as they drove off. 

 

Five minutes later, Doyle pulled the car over onto the grassy verge at the side of a narrow lane and got out. He stretched and took a deep breath, and then rested his elbows on the top rail of the five-barred gate beside which they had stopped. Bodie followed, leaning beside him companionably. The sun beat hotly down on them out of a cloudless blue sky. The air was still and sweet, and there were no signs of humanity other than themselves and the distance-muted sound of a car engine. 

 

"This it, then?" Bodie asked. 

 

"As near as makes no difference," Doyle replied. "It's the other side of the field, where those trees are." 

 

Bodie's gaze followed a pointing finger. The field before them sloped steeply up in the centre, the far side hidden beyond the rising ground. The tops of a grove of trees were just visible. "No barmaids," he commented, settling his face into an expression of massively overdone woeful disappointment. 

 

"Prat!" Doyle said affectionately, turning back to the car and opening up the boot. 

 

Bodie peered inside with delight at the revealed treasure trove of two cardboard boxes packed full of edible goodies and a third, smaller one containing plates, glasses and cutlery. 

 

"You planning on feeding the five thousand?" 

 

"Only you," Doyle told him, long familiar with his partner's eating capabilities. He lifted out one of the boxes of food and set it on the grass by his feet. "Well, don't just stand there droolin', you lazy sod. Give us a hand, then!" 

 

"I'm a guest!" Bodie reminded him in an aggrieved tone. "Guests aren't usually expected to fetch and carry for themselves." 

 

"I know one guest who'll get a thick ear if he doesn't," Doyle said. "Come on, take some of this stuff across. There's a little clearing right on the riverbank. Even you can't miss it." 

 

"Yes, oh Lord and Master." Still grumbling, more for appearances sake and out of habit than for any other reason, Bodie liberated the beer from the back seat of the car where he had tossed it, and balanced both packs precariously on top of one of the food containers. Doyle hitched a hip against the open boot and watched with interest the one-handed struggle to open the gate without dropping anything. 

 

Bodie cast a jaundiced glance over one shoulder. "Don't bother helping, will you?" 

 

"Oh, all right then, I won't." 

 

"Thanks a bunch!" 

 

The gate finally succumbed to a kick and swung wide open. The topmost pack of beer wobbled dangerously, but managed somehow not to fall. Bodie treated his amused partner to a retribution-promising look, and trudged off across the field. Grinning, Doyle watched until he was nearly out of sight; then he locked the car, slung the rug for sitting on over one shoulder, picked up the remaining two boxes and followed. 

 

He had gone barely a dozen paces into the field when Bodie reappeared at the top of the rise. Doyle's brain took a second to wonder: 'Why is he coming back?' and another to add: 'Why the hell is he running like that?' before the answer to both queries hove into view: the largest, blackest, and undoubtedly the angriest bull it had ever been his misfortune to encounter. Head down, it was moving at a remarkable turn of speed for such a massive beast, and gaining steadily on Bodie. 

 

One glance had Doyle agreeing instantly and wholeheartedly with whoever had first claimed discretion to be the better part of valour. He yelled, "Run, Bodie!" at the top of his voice, and turned and fled for the gate and safety. Once through, he dropped both boxes - with a rattling crash from the one containing the crockery - and slammed the gate shut with all his strength and fastened it. 

 

Bodie, arriving mere seconds later, took off in a flying forward somersault over the top. He was still in the middle of his landing roll when the bull, unable to stop in time and too incensed to swerve, crashed full tilt into the obstruction. 

The gate shuddered violently, but held - just. 

 

Bodie picked himself out of the shallow ditch on the far side of the lane into which his roll had deposited him, and glared furiously at Doyle over the top of the Escort. 

 

"Of all the stupid, unnecessary pieces of advice I have ever been given, 'Run Bodie!' in a situation like that has to take the bloody biscuit. What the fuck did you think I was doing?" 

 

"Are you okay?" Doyle demanded. 

 

"I'll be fucking fantastic as soon as I've finished having the coronary," Bodie snapped. He picked blades of grass out of his hair and dusted himself down. "You should try losing a year of your life sometime, mate; does you no end of good. Oh Christ! I've torn my trousers!" 

 

He regarded the three-inch rent in one knee of said garment balefully, before transferring the murderous glare to the bull, which was glowering, red-eyed, at them between the bars of the gate and pawing the ground viciously. Doyle took a deep breath. 

 

"What'd you do to get it so riled anyway?" 

 

"What do you think I did, ravished its favourite cow or something?" Bodie shifted his glare to his companion. "I didn't do a damn thing! It took one look at me and decided the field wasn't big enough for both of us. I didn't hang around to argue." 

 

Doyle rested his folded arms on the top of the car and leaned his forehead on them. His shoulders began to shake silently. Bodie frowned. Surely he wasn't... 

He was! The little toe-rag was actually laughing! 

 

"Doyle?" he said menacingly. 

 

Doyle looked up, face scarlet and eyes swimming with mirth. "Jesus, Bodie, you should've s-seen your face when you c-came over the hill," he spluttered. "You were s-shit scared!" 

 

"You're damn right I was! Have you looked at the size of that beast?" Bodie demanded with manifest exasperation. "And come to think about it, I don't see what you have to snigger about. You were pretty quick off the mark yourself once you realised what was happening." 

 

"Yeah, I was, wasn't I? Oh God! Cowley's Finest, run off by a bloody bovine Goliath!" 

 

Doyle hiccupped and put his head down again, dissolving into another helpless paroxysm of laughter. His shock and fright beginning to fade, after a moment Bodie began to see the funny side as well and joined in, leaning weakly against the side of the car. It was some considerable time before either of them managed to get themselves back under some semblance of control. 

 

Doyle sniffed loudly, and wiped his streaming eyes on the back of his hand. "If only I'd had a camera!" 

 

Bodie winced. "Thank heaven for small mercies! I'm going to have enough trouble living down the story without having it immortalised on film as well," he said glumly. "You do intend spreading it all over HQ the minute we get back, don't you?" 

 

"The thought never occurred to me!" Doyle denied, all indignant virtue and somehow managing to look supremely innocent whilst lying through his teeth. 

 

"Oh yeah?" 

 

"Would I do such a thing?" 

 

"Would you scratch an itch? Is the Pope a Catholic?" Bodie wasn't fooled for an instant. He glanced around and added, "What happens now, then? Go home, do we?" 

 

Doyle set his jaw with familiar stubbornness. "I," he said, "came out here to 'ave a picnic, and a picnic I am going to have if it kills me." 

 

"Try having one in that field and it may well do," Bodie said with complete conviction. The bull had ceased its apparent attempt to dig through to the Antipodes, but was still regarding them with a less-than-friendly expression in its beady eyes. 

 

"Determined I may be, crazy I'm not!" Doyle retorted. "We'll go on to Pollock's Pool instead. That's where I used to go swimming. It's only a couple of minutes farther along the lane, and I intended taking you there later anyway." 

 

He picked up the two boxes resting somewhat drunkenly against one another on the grass and replaced them in the boot of the car. A quick glance at the one containing the crockery produced a sigh of relief that nothing appeared to have been broken by its earlier sudden impact with the ground. Then he raised an innocently enquiring eyebrow at his watching partner. "All right, then, what happened to the food and booze you had with you?" 

 

Bodie looked embarrassed. "I dropped everything when that thing started chasing me. Don't you dare laugh again! Something had to go, and I knew there was more grub but there's only one of me." 

 

"That there is, lover!" Doyle agreed, schooling his expression to rather overdone solemnity and earning a suspicious frown. "But you'll be sorry. That box was the one with all your favourite junk in it: strawberry jam sarnies 'n' swiss roll 'n' chocolate 'n' stuff like that." He slammed the boot lid shut, cheerfully ignoring Bodie's anguished groan of disappointment, and got into the car. "You ought to 'ave hung onto the beer at least. Now we'll have to make do with the couple of cans of Coke and the flask of coffee I brought." 

 

"We could always go back to the village and get more," Bodie suggested hopefully, sliding into the passenger seat. 

 

"No way, my son! You just want another go at chatting up that barmaid, and I'm not having that. It'd only overtax your strength," Doyle added smugly. 

 

Bodie's voluble and colourful response to that unwarranted slur lasted throughout the brief drive, and continued unabated across yet another field - suspiciously and carefully investigated for lurking bulls before he set foot in it - to the wide bend in the river where the current slowed and the water deepened under overhanging trees. 

 

Doyle sighed with satisfaction, and took several deep slow breaths. 

 

"That," he said, pointing a long forefinger at a weed-smothered heap of rubble on the opposite bank, "is the remains of the Pollock's cottage. According to the story, there were two brothers, Tom and Jim. Jim fell in love with a local girl who turned him down so, heartbroken, he went off to fight in the Great War. 

 

Unfortunately, he was so busy thinking about 'er that he didn't keep his head down, and got himself killed. When the news came through, Tom was so upset that he came straight out of the cottage and drowned himself in the river. At least, rumour has it that was the reason." 

 

"What - here?" Bodie asked, gazing at the peacefully smooth expanse of water sparkling in the dappled sunlight. 

 

"Yeah, right here," Doyle concurred. He spread the rug and flung himself down upon it. "'S why it's been known as Pollock's Pool ever since." 

 

"I don't think I like it here." 

 

"Eh? Bodie, the guy killed 'imself sixty-odd years ago..." 

 

"Don't be daft, I didn't mean that," Bodie interrupted dismissively. "It's just that... Well, there's been something wrong with every other place you've taken me to today. Makes me wonder what might be up with this one." 

 

"Not a thing," Doyle said, looking around contentedly. "It's lovely, this is. Just as I remember it." 

 

"That's what worries me," Bodie protested suspiciously. "Doesn't fit in with the rest of today at all. There has to be something wrong. I know - there'll be an ants' nest...or poison ivy...or an alligator in the pool..." 

 

"Don't be ridiculous! Sit down and shut up, Cassandra!" Doyle commanded. He rummaged in the box of food and produced a chicken leg, rather in the manner of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat. "Here, wrap your jaws around that, it'll make you feel better. You're probably beginning to suffer from incipient starvation." 

 

As always, food concentrated Bodie's attention wonderfully, to the exclusion of all else. He dropped down beside Doyle and the chicken leg speedily changed hands. "What else have you got in there?" emerged in slightly muffled tones from around a large mouthful of succulent flesh. 

 

"Lots of things." Doyle slapped away a questing hand. "But I think we should wait until after we've 'ad our swim." 

 

Bodie paused, mouth poised to take another bite. "What swim?" 

 

"I didn't bring you out here just so you could stuff yourself," Doyle told him." Can't go swimming on a full stomach, you'll take cramp and drown. I thought we'd swim first and eat afterwards." 

 

"I'm starving!" Bodie protested. "You said we were going to eat. And you never mentioned anything about going for a swim." 

 

"Ah, c'mon Bodie! 'S lovely for swimming in, that water is. I used to do it all the time. It'll cool us down a treat. I'm all hot and sticky from driving in this heat." 

 

"I haven't brought any trunks." 

 

"Who needs 'em!" Doyle kicked off trainers and socks, and emerged from pulling his t-shirt over his head to find his companion's public prudishness rearing its head. He always had trouble reconciling such Victorian lapses with the other Bodie, the one whose inventiveness and abandonment in bed made their lovemaking so exciting. 

 

"You expect me to swim starkers?" 

 

"Why not?" Doyle paused in the act of unbuckling the belt of his jeans. "Don't tell me you've never done it before." 

 

"As it happens, I haven't. And I don't intend to start now. With the kind of luck we've been having all day, a convent school outing complete with half a dozen nuns'd turn up as soon as I'd stripped off." 

 

"So what? Give 'em an unexpected thrill then, won't we?" said Doyle, wriggling out of jeans and briefs, totally unconcerned. 

 

"Exhibitionist!" 

 

Doyle posed, one knee slightly bent, hand on out-thrust hip. "If you've got, flaunt it, I always say. C'mon, mate, there's no one around for miles except me, and I'm not goin' to see anything I haven't seen before am I? If I do, I'll shoot it." 

 

"Oh, ha-bloody-ha!" Bodie said, unamused. "Look, you want to go skinny-dipping, sunshine, go right ahead. Don't let me stop you. I, on the other hand, intend keeping all my clothes exactly where they are." 

 

"You know what you are, don't you?" Doyle protested. Bodie remained adamant. "Oh all right, then, spoilsport! But if you can't be persuaded to swim, at least come in and paddle. Keep me company - please, Bodie? It'll be no fun on my own." 

 

Bodie sighed. Nobody could wheedle in the same way as Doyle could when he set his mind to it, or look so childishly disappointed if he didn't get his own way. Nobody could be quite as persistent as Doyle, either; when he really wanted something he would hang in there for ever, And Bodie noted a gleam in the green eyes that told him without words that there would be no peace without compromise on his part. 

 

"It's too deep for paddling," he said hopefully. 

 

"No it isn't." Doyle bent over to peer in the water, best asset prominently on display. Bodie swallowed hard, hands itching to reach out and touch. "It's only about a foot or so here at the edge, but it gets pretty deep in the middle. You'll be okay if you stay close to the bank. And you can wipe that look off your face." 

 

"Which look?" 

 

Doyle straightened and turned. "The one that says you'd like to have me for lunch. Don't come the innocent with me, mate, I can read you like a book even with me back turned. If you don't swim with me there'll be none of that sort of thing. On the other hand," he added magnanimously, grinning at Bodie's exaggeratedly crestfallen expression, "if you do come for a paddle, I might just possibly consider allowing you a nibble or two for afters." 

 

"That's blackmail!" 

 

"You're damn right it is. Well?" 

 

"You," Bodie told him, beginning to remove his shoes and socks with resignation, "could probably persuade it to snow in the Sahara. Okay, you can give over. I'll get my feet wet." 

 

Doyle chuckled - one of his plumbing-gurgle specials - and stepped into the water, wincing momentarily at its cool bite on heated skin. He waded in until he was waist deep, and then ducked and came up swimming. When he turned to face the bank again Bodie, a wary expression on his face and trousers rolled up to his knees, was just stepping in gingerly. 

 

"Owww! This is bloody freezing!" 

 

"No?" Doyle said, his tone heavily ironic. He shook sodden curls out of his eyes. "Quit whinging, for heaven's sake, you'll stop noticing it in a minute." 

 

He ignored the pained reception of this callous lack of sympathy, and set off at a leisurely crawl to explore the limits of the pool. Bodie stood for several minutes, enjoying watching the lean body splashing about like a curly-haired porpoise. Doyle was a smooth, strong swimmer who could cut through the water like a knife if need be; at the moment he was simply enjoying himself, relaxed and happy. And when Doyle was happy, Bodie was happy too. 

 

The past six weeks had provided neither of them with any opportunity for either relaxation or happiness. The assignment had been difficult and dangerous from the word go, and had been made worse by the fact that they had been working apart for almost all the time. For the first five weeks Doyle had been undercover, trying to infiltrate the terrorist group in which CI5 was interested in order to garner information about their next target. Bodie had been his liaison, but in the sort of situation where one tiny slip could have spelt disaster they had been able to make contact only by brief, carefully staged 'accidental' meetings. 

 

The final few days before the counter-operation went down had been the worst of all: Doyle unable to pull out, because his doing so might have engendered suspicions which could have led to the terrorists' plans being changed or the whole thing being aborted; Bodie up to his neck in a twenty-four-hour stakeout, and unable to contact Doyle at all for the same reasons. 

 

Then, there had been the actual operation itself. It had lasted for less than two hours, but at the end of it four of the terrorists lay dead and two CI5 agents were injured. That had been followed by non-stop, intensive interrogations of the surviving terrorists...followed by seemingly endless de-briefings and written reports... 

 

Because of the change in their relationship the strain on both of them had been tremendous, even greater than in similar operations in the past. Working apart had been the killer, the not knowing if the other was safe. When Cowley had finally told them, "Go home. I don't want to see either of you until Monday morning." the relief of realising it was all over at last and they were both still in one piece had been overwhelming. 

 

At that moment, all Bodie had wanted to do was put his arms around Doyle and hold him close and love him and never let him go again. Doyle's eyes had said he felt exactly the same way. But over-stressed bodies and minds had had other ideas. On the way out of HQ the exhaustion they had been holding at bay for so long had fallen on both of them like the proverbial ton of bricks. They had gone home to separate flats and separate beds, and Bodie had been nearly comatose before his head hit the pillow and had remained so until Doyle's phone call this morning. 

 

Now, however, rested and relaxed and reacting pleasurably to Doyle's company, his fertile imagination was making plans for later. A nibble or two for afters, indeed! There would be no quick fumble in the grass if he had any say in the matter. He fully intended to take Doyle to bed and love him long and slow and hard in every possible way that imagination could devise. And since Doyle's imagination was no less fertile than his own, he had no doubt the favour would be returned with interest. 

 

In fact, if things proceeded as planned, they would both be lucky if they were capable of standing up on Monday morning, never mind returning to duty! 

 

"You puttin' down roots and turning into a water-lily or something, petal?" 

 

Bodie jumped as Doyle's husky, teasing voice broke in on his contemplation of a very pleasant near future. "Uhh! I was thinking." 

 

"Oh, is that what you were doing? Should watch it if I were you." Doyle trod water nearby, eyebrows lost in the tangle of wet curls clinging to his forehead. 

"That sort of thing can put a serious strain on the brain y'know, especially when it's not used to it." 

 

"Oh...go dodge a harpoon, Moby Dick!" 

 

It was a very long way from being the wittiest riposte Bodie had ever made, but Doyle greeted it with another of his chuckles before flipping over into a lazy backstroke and continuing his explorations. 

 

Bodie sidestepped swiftly to avoid the miniature tsunami raised by carelessly splashing feet, and set off on a wandering exploration of his own along the river's edge. After a while, tired of bruising his feet on the pebbled bottom and of having his ankles tickled by shoals of sticklebacks and other, less easily identifiable creatures, he found a level section of bank and sat down, leaning back on his elbows, feet dangling just above the surface of the water. 

It was just as Doyle had said it would be: peaceful and quiet, except for birdsong and the sounds of the river itself intermingled with Doyle's distant splashing, the air sweet and fresh and warm without even the hint of a breeze. 

Gradually, Bodie slipped backwards until he was lying flat on his back, hands clasped on his chest. His eyes drifted shut. It was so nice here...miles away from their usual haunts, and the dirty world of cross and double-cross... 

 

Now, if only he had something to eat he'd be really happy... 

 

"Gettin' past it, are we? Reduced to takin' a nap in the middle of the day now?" Doyle's intrusive voice startled Bodie for the second time, bringing him out of a light doze. 

 

"I'm not asleep, just resting my eyes," he denied hastily, opening one eye and squinting past the end of his nose. 

 

"Could've fooled me!" Standing in the river grinning while water ran in rivulets down his lean body and his wet curls plastered themselves to his skull, Doyle shook himself vigorously. 

 

"Give over! Worse than a bloody dog, you are!" Bodie scrambled inelegantly to his feet. 

 

He didn't quite make it. Several factors combined to create the resultant disaster, his awkward starting position and too great haste among them. He was nearly upright when one still wet foot skidded on the grassy edge of the riverbank and, losing the little balance he had, he stumbled forward, arms flailing wildly. Doyle had time for only one dismayed yelp before an all too solid partner crashed into him, and they both vanished into the river in an enormous fountain of spray. 

 

When the water settled it revealed an irate Bodie struggling to disentangle himself from his octopus-like involvement with Doyle and stand up. Succeeding at last, he clambered out onto dry land and proceeded to make it very wet indeed by dripping all over it like a human waterfall. 

 

"Oh God, I'm soaked to the fucking skin!" 

 

Clambering onto his own feet, Doyle could no more have prevented his reaction than he could have stopped breathing. Despite Bodie's thunderous expression, despite the complaints of those portions of his anatomy that had borne the brunt of his impact with the stony riverbed, he burst out laughing. 

 

And found himself the recipient of the kind of glare that had been known to strip paint at twenty paces. 

 

"Just what, exactly, do you find so bloody funny?" Bodie demanded. 

 

Doyle attempted to control himself, failed miserably, and laughed all the harder. "Y-you..." he spluttered, "you should s-see...you ought...oh, C-Christ, I think I'm goin' to die...!" 

 

"That can be arranged, if you don't shut your face," Bodie told him ominously. "This is all your fault!" 

 

"My fault? What do you mean, my fault?" Doyle sobered considerably at the accusation - unjustified, in his opinion. He climbed out of the water to face his partner, gloriously naked, his clenched fists resting on bony hips. "It was an accident. You slipped." 

 

"If you hadn't been spraying water everywhere like a Shetland sheepdog I wouldn't have tried to get out of your way, and if I hadn't tried to get out of your way I wouldn't have slipped," said Bodie with, to him, inescapable logic, not to mention a large amount of ire. "And if I hadn't slipped, I wouldn't have fallen in and got fucking soaked..." 

 

"Oh, all right, there's no need to go on about it!" Doyle snapped, fading amusement rapidly giving way to annoyance. "I suppose if you're really all that determined to blame me for everything, you'll do it anyway, no matter what I say and whether there's any truth in it or not. C'mon, let's go back to where our things are and you can strip off. Your clothes'll dry in no time if you hang 'em in the sun for a while." 

 

He turned his back on the still muttering Bodie and stalked off along the riverbank through the close-growing trees. Nobody - but nobody - he had ever known could be as irritating as Bodie could be if he really put his mind to it. What had happened was unfortunate, in fact the whole day was turning out to be unfortunate in one way or another, but it was also funny in a black sort of way. Depended on how you looked at it. 

 

Generally, Bodie's sense of humour, as errant as Doyle's own, would have had him laughing too as it had done in the case of the bull. Somewhere along the line, however, it appeared to have vanished, and it was all too obvious that he had no intention whatsoever of conceding there was anything even remotely amusing about the present situation. 

 

Doyle flicked a quick glance over one shoulder. Bodie was only a few steps behind, still wearing an expression guaranteed to sour cream and radiating an amazing amount of outraged dignity for one in his dripping condition. In spite of his own increasing irritation Doyle had to fight down an impulse to laugh again. Another outburst of hysterics on his part certainly would not be appreciated just at the moment. 

 

No. Self-control, diplomacy, and above all a generous helping of lunch were what were needed to soothe severely ruffled feathers, and restore the lost sense of the ridiculous. Talk about the way to a man's heart! Over the years Doyle had discovered that feeding Bodie's ever-hungry digestive system was the highway to so much more than just that. 

 

Just then they emerged from amongst the trees into the small open grassy area where they had left their belongings, and Doyle got a grandstand view of the latest disaster to strike. Unable to believe his eyes, he halted so suddenly that Bodie, too close behind, crashed into him before he too could stop. And then Doyle plunged forward with an ear-splitting yell. 

 

"Bloody animal! Gerroff! Go on - get out of it!" 

 

The goat, whose head was buried in the ruins of the cardboard box and remains of their scattered food as it munched happily, leapt like a startled chamois. It took one, terrified look at the furious apparition bearing down upon it and immediately departed at high speed for pastures new - and safe. Doyle charged after it, still yelling - until he suddenly came to his senses and realised he was out in the open in the middle of the field, stark naked, in full view of anyone who happened to pass by in the lane. 

 

Not that there was anyone there at the moment, and this place wasn't exactly Piccadilly Circus at the best of times...but considering the way things had been going from bad to worse all day... 

 

He could almost see the headline in THE SUN: 'NUDE CI5 AGENT IN FIELD WITH GOAT! WE REVEAL ALL!' 

 

Cowley's reaction did not bear thinking about. 

 

Consigning the goat - which had vanished - to the lowest pit in hell with considerable relish, he beat a strategic retreat back to the safe concealment of the trees and thence to what remained of their picnic site, where he found Bodie dripping miserably over the ruins. 

 

"Damn thing disappeared through a hole in the hedge into the next field. Must have been where it came form in the first place." Doyle regarded the evidence of the goat's depredations in disgust. "God, what a mess!" 

 

"I," Bodie said suddenly in a deceptively calm, quiet voice as he waved a hand about six inches above his head, "have had it up to here with this picnic in the country lark. I'm going home!" 

 

"Ah, c'mon, mate..." 

 

"I," Bodie continued as though Doyle had not spoken, "was woken up this morning at an indecent hour by an idiot on the phone, and persuaded into this jaunt against my better judgement. I have been chased to within an inch of my life by a bovine King Kong, ripped the knee out of my second best pair of trousers, and ruined a perfectly good new shirt by falling in the river. And then, having suffered a conspicuous lack of sympathy from the same idiot who got me into all this in the first place, I find that a bloody goat has eaten my lunch! I," he reiterated firmly, "am going home!" 

 

"It's not that I don't sympathise," Doyle protested, "it's just that..." 

 

Once again his attempt to speak was ignored. "You can stay and commune with nature if you want to, sunshine," Bodie added as he set off across the field towards the lane and the parked car. "Otherwise, you'd best stir yourself or you'll be walking home." 

 

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Doyle asked the retreating back, his annoyance flaring again. 

 

"Such as?" Bodie glanced back over a shoulder but didn't slow down. 

 

"It's my car and I've got the keys." 

 

"Not any more you haven't. I took 'em out of your jeans while you were chasing the goat." 

 

"Bloody 'ell!" 

 

Doyle began a mad scramble to get dressed as Bodie continued his determined trek towards the car. In the mood he was in at the moment, the exasperating so-and-so was perfectly capable of carrying out his threat and driving off, and Doyle didn't fancy being stranded miles from home. Decently covered once more in clothes that clung to damp skin, he gathered up the rug and the still mercifully undamaged box of crockery, abandoned to its fate the mess the goat had made, and took off at a run in Bodie's footsteps. 

 

When he arrived at the car Bodie was already in the driver's seat with the engine running. Doyle flung rug and box into the back seat and himself into the front. He barely had his backside on the seat and the door closed before Bodie had swung the car into a three-point turn and was roaring back the way they had come. 

 

Doyle slumped down, clamped his teeth tightly together, and counted slowly and silently to twenty with immense concentration. Now was not the time to lose his temper. Bodie had a right to be annoyed and if he, Doyle, were honest about it he had to admit that, had the boot been on the other foot, he would not be feeling too pleased with life himself at the moment. 

 

He stole a glance at the mutinous profile beside him, and felt a twinge of guilt. His spur-of-the-moment plan to visit childhood memories with Bodie had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Too good, maybe? Perhaps the possibility that it could all go pear shaped ought to have been expected. After all, despite his years in Africa, and in the Paras and the SAS, Bodie was really a big city boy at heart. Anywhere beyond Neasden was like foreign soil to him, to be ventured into only after language lessons and Yellow Fever jabs. Dragging him out of his natural habitat had been asking for trouble, and it had certainly found them! 

 

Doyle sighed. Usually it was he who over-reacted, as he had done earlier in Upton and at the former site of the farm and, as had happened then, it was always Bodie who jollied him out of it with a mixture of teasing and sympathy. Now appeared to be one of the rare occasions when he could return the favour. Their off-duty time together, and especially this weekend, was much too precious for them to spend grumping at one another over trivialities. He could think of much pleasanter activities, had been thinking about them all day, in fact. 

 

And judging by Bodie's expression, making peace could be an uphill struggle; so the sooner he got started... 

 

"Look, mate, maybe it was my fault that you fell in the river, and I shouldn't have laughed, but I couldn't help myself." 

 

"Oh, don't worry about it," Bodie said sarcastically. "I loved every minute of it, really I did." 

 

Doyle tightened his lips, breathed deeply, and swallowed another large slice of humble pie. "I didn't plan on everything goin' wrong, you know," he said in a conciliatory tone. "I wanted you to enjoy today, not suffer one disaster after another. Seems to me, Somebody up there doesn't like us." 

 

"Doesn't like me, you mean." 

 

"All right, doesn't like you," Doyle agreed. "I shouldn't have laughed at you, and I'm sorry I did - but you know what me sense of humour's like. And it was funny..." 

 

"I was not amused," Bodie said in much the same tone as Queen Victoria might have used. "Even if you were!" 

 

"You ought to 'ave seen your face when you realised you were goin' to fall in the river and there wasn't a damn thing you could do to stop yourself," Doyle said. "C'mon, Bodie, you know you would've found it hilarious if it'd been me." 

 

"I would not!" 

 

"Yes you would!" 

 

"Would not!" 

 

"Would!" 

 

"Wouldn't..." Bodie made the fatal mistake of catching Doyle's eye, and was lost. A reluctant grin began to surface, and the atmosphere in the car lightened considerably. "Oh, all right, I probably would have done!" He glanced down at his sodden condition and the grin widened. "I just hope you still think it's so funny when you start noticing the state of your car. I've been dripping all over it like Niagara." 

 

"It'll dry out," Doyle said carelessly, too relieved that his companion's mislaid good humour had been restored much more easily than feared to worry about something as mundane as the state of his car's interior. 

 

Bodie chuckled suddenly. "Talking about faces, you ought to have seen yours, sunshine, when you realised I was going to fall on top of you." 

 

"Have you taken a good look at yourself lately?" Doyle enquired acidly. "You're no featherweight, you know, and that riverbed was covered in stones. I'll 'ave bruises on me bruises tomorrow." 

 

"I'll kiss them better," Bodie offered, and then added aggrievedly, "And talking about weight - I'm a lot lighter than I used to be. No breakfast, and no lunch...I could kill that bloody goat! I was looking forward to something to eat. Oh hell, do we have to go through the village again?" 

 

"It's the only direct route back to the main road and the motorway." 

 

Bodie groaned. He slowed down to negotiate his way around Upton Green and along the main street, both of which were even more congested than they had been earlier. Once through the worst of it, he began picking up speed again. 

"I've been thinking..." Doyle began. 

 

"Hurt, did it?" Bodie asked pleasantly, getting some of his own back for an earlier slur. 

 

"...about your lack of sustenance," Doyle continued, blithely ignoring the interruption. "When we get back to Town, how does stopping off for a takeaway from the Golden Dragon grab you? My treat. You can have whatever you want," he added rashly. 

 

"Anything I want? And you're paying?" Bodie asked carefully, checking. 

 

Doyle mentally reviewed the condition his wallet was likely to be in after his partner had gone through the Golden Dragon's menu like a dose of salts, and winced. "I'm paying," he confirmed. "We can go back to my place. There's a Steve McQueen film on the box, that prisoner of war thingy... 'The Great Escape'." 

 

"You can't stand Steve McQueen! And you've been dodging 'The Great Escape' for years!" 

 

"I don't suppose it'll kill me if I watch it just once, will it?" Doyle said. He didn't sound too certain. "Anyway, I figure I owe you one for today." 

 

Bodie rolled his eyes skyward and smiled happily. "Oh, Lord, this makes everything that's happened almost worthwhile. All the grub I can eat, at your expense, and then getting to watch you squirm through 'The Great Escape'. I think I may have died and gone to heaven!" 

 

"There's no need to rub it in. The offer isn't written in stone, y'know, it can be withdrawn at any time. And talking of heaven..." Doyle treated first the speedometer and then the hedgerows flashing past to a pointed glance, "...don't you think seventy is a bit fast for this hill, considering there's a diabolical left-hand bend coming up at the bottom of it?" 

 

"There isn't?" 

 

"There bloody well is! Slow down, you berk!" 

 

"Oh damn!" 

 

Bodie crashed down through the gears, only to be rewarded by a grating rattle from the direction of the gearbox. "Where the hell has third gone?" he snarled, braking hard. 

 

He changed down still farther, with no appreciable result other than more painfully unpleasant and discordant noises. Doyle grabbed at the nearest handhold as the bottom of the hill and its sharp left-hander rushed at them much too fast for comfort, or safety. Somehow Bodie wrestled the Escort around it and freewheeled to a halt, thankfully still on his own side of the road. 

 

After a long and expressively silent pause Doyle peeled his fingers off the dashboard, and ungritted his teeth before saying, much too quietly, "You complete and utter berk, what have you gone and done to my car?" 

 

Bodie tried the useless clutch pedal and gear lever again, and then switched off the ignition with a sigh of frustration and glanced at Doyle glumly. "I think the clutch has gone." 

 

"You think the..." Doyle's voice rose. "Of all the stupid, ham-fisted..." 

 

For the next couple of minutes he demonstrated an astonishing grasp of the English language, particularly its more colourful invective. Until he finally ran out of breath and momentum, he did not repeat himself once. Despite the fact that the tirade was directed against himself and his driving abilities - or lack thereof - Bodie received it with bemused admiration. 

 

"I don't believe some of those words. You're making them up." 

 

"You're an ignorant sod as well as the rest of it, you know that?" Doyle told him. He leaned back and sighed wearily. "All right, then, what are you waiting for? Go on, call in." 

 

"Me? Why me?" 

 

"You're driving, so it's your breakdown." 

 

"It's your car," Bodie protested. 

 

Doyle fished in his pocket for a coin. "Okay, if you're going to be like that about it, I'll toss you for the pleasure. Heads!" 

 

"Tails!" 

 

Doyle lost. 

 

To the accompaniment of a distant rumble of thunder and one of Bodie's smug grins, he unhooked the R/T handset. "4.5 to Central. Come in, Central." 

 

"Central. Go ahead, 4.5." 

 

"Julie, love, patch me through to the garage, will you?" 

 

"Certainly, 4.5." There was an infinitesimal hesitation, then the radio officer's voice added with a hint of amusement, "You...umm... haven't mislaid your car again by any chance, have you?" 

 

Bodie sniggered. 

 

Doyle groaned. He was still trying to live down the embarrassing occasion when, in the heat of the moment, he had abandoned his car in a maze of North London side streets to continue a chase on foot and then been unable to remember exactly where he had left it. Cowley had been less than pleased, especially when the local Traffic Branch with many snide remarks had returned it. Everyone else on the Squad had thought it hilarious. 

 

"No, Julie darling, I have not mislaid my car." 

"Pity, we could have done with another good laugh; it's been dead boring here all day. Patching you through now." 

 

"A fiver says it's Bert who's on duty," Bodie offered. 

 

Doyle shook his head and grimaced. "No way, mate. The way things 'ave been going today, that's an absolute cert, not a bet." 

 

The R/T crackled back into life. "Russell here. What's the problem, 4.5?" 

 

Doyle's expressive eyebrows climbed into a "What did I tell you?" position, and he grimaced again in resignation. To Bert Russell, CI5's chief mechanic, all cars were feminine and to be treated with the care and attention most men lavished on their mistresses. To this end he waged a constant battle with all those on the Squad, from Cowley downwards, who regarded a car as four wheels and an engine, something that got you from A to B, preferably as fast as possible. He wasn't going to like the current situation one bit. 

 

He didn't. When their predicament had been explained to him, he too demonstrated volubly a comprehensive grasp of the language, combined with a predictably poor opinion of a so-called skilled driver who got himself into such a spot. 

 

"I wasn't driving, 3.7 was," Doyle protested as soon as he could get a word in, cheerfully dropping his partner in it in the sure and certain knowledge that, were the positions reversed, Bodie would do exactly the same to him. 

 

"Oh, ta very much!" Bodie muttered, not quite sotto voce, as once again his driving abilities were called into question and then disposed of, this time in one succinct sentence. 

 

Doyle scowled warningly at him, just before Russell asked, "Where are you anyway?" 

 

Doyle told him. The detailed directions were received with a groan. "Why me, Lord? I suppose it was too much to hope for that you might have done this a bit closer to Base. Okay, I'll be with you as soon as I can, with a spare car. Just stay put, for God's sake!" 

 

"Where does he think we can go with no clutch?" Bodie enquired of the world at large. 

 

Doyle hastily thumbed the R/T off. "Shut up, Bodie! You know what he's like. We're off-duty, so if you irritate him the bugger's perfectly capable of leaving us stuck out here for hours, just for jollies." There was a second grumble of thunder, much closer and louder this time, and a sudden chilly breeze gusted in through the open window. He peered up at the rapidly darkening sky. "I think this heat wave is about to break." 

 

Bodie directed his own gaze skywards just as the first large, fat raindrops pattered onto the roof of the car. "Could be right. Give it a few minutes and you'll be the only ray of sunshine around here. It looks like the monsoon's getting ready to set in." 

 

An hour and a half later, when Russell finally arrived in one of the gold Capri's closely followed by a minion in the CI5 breakdown van, the monsoon - or a reasonable facsimile of it - had indeed set in. The rain was coming down like stair-rods and bouncing back off the parched ground, and the massive thunderstorm that had recently passed directly overhead was still creating a spectacular son-et-lumiere effect somewhere to the north. The temperature had abruptly dropped at least ten degrees Celsius, and Bodie was now cold as well as wet through and in typical Bodie fashion not suffering in silence. 

 

Doyle's patience, never very robust even at the best of times, was wearing exceedingly thin, so the arrival of the rescue party was greeted with considerable relief. 

 

The transfer from one car to the other was speedily accomplished, the keys of the Capri being handed ostentatiously to Doyle. This manoeuvre was treated to one of Bodie's best scowls, the intimidatory effect of which was spoiled by several shivers and an enormous sneeze. Russell replied with a scowl of his own which was a perfect match for Bodie's in ferocity. 

 

"Accidents going somewhere to happen, both of 'em!" drifted sourly in their wake as they drove off in a shower of spray from the spinning rear wheels, before he turned to the abandoned Escort with a sigh of resignation. 

 

The journey back to London was completed in record time. Once they were on the move again, and the heater had been turned up to maximum, Bodie cheered up slightly. It didn't stop him complaining altogether but it was at least enough to prevent murder being done. When they eventually pulled up outside the Golden Dragon, Doyle switched off the engine and turned to him with a sigh. 

 

"Okay, Moanin' Minnie, what do you want to eat?" 

 

Bodie sniffled and blew his nose. "Everything," he said, voice muffled behind his handkerchief. 

 

"Everything? Even you can't eat everything." 

 

"I can make a bloody good stab at it. I'm starving! Just because you can survive on less than an anorexic sparrow at times doesn't mean we can all do likewise, you know. You did promise I could have anything I wanted, and I want everything." Bodie fixed him with a challenging blue stare. "Unless, of course, you've changed your mind?" 

 

For a split second Doyle thought about reneging on his offer, but the gleam in Bodie's eyes warned against any such thing and he gave up. "Just so long as you remember I don't print me own fivers, mate." 

 

Back at the flat he relieved his companion of the multitude of containers holding, if not quite 'everything' the Golden Dragon had to offer, then at least a large proportion of Bodie's favourites, and nudged him in the direction of the bathroom. "Go on, then, take off those wet things and have a hot shower," he ordered. "Can't have you getting sick. I'll put this stuff to keep warm until we're ready for it." 

 

"Yes, Mum!" Bodie said, good humour completely restored once more by anticipation of a substantial meal, and the memory of the pained expression on Doyle's face as he had parted with what he considered an inordinate amount of money for it. Serve the little sod right! Shouldn't make promises he wasn't prepared to keep! 

 

In the bathroom he stripped off his chilly, soggy clothing and stepped under the shower spray, which was running as hot as he could stand it. He was just beginning to feel comfortably human again when the curtain was twitched aside, and Doyle thrust a large steaming mug at him. 

 

"Here, drink this!" 

 

"What is it?" Bodie sniffed suspiciously. "Whisky?" 

 

"With hot water and a spoonful of sugar in it," Doyle confirmed. 

 

"Sugar? In whisky?" Bodie was horrified. "Cowley'd have your guts for garters if he knew about this!" 

 

"My Gran's sovereign remedy for a threatenin' cold, this is," Doyle told him. "Get it down you, it'll do the world of good." 

 

"A witch was she - your Gran?" Bodie accepted the proffered mug gingerly. 

 

"Amongst other things," Doyle agreed. "C'mon, drink it!" 

 

Bodie took an experimental mouthful and yelped in pain. "It's scalding hot! I've burnt my tongue to a crisp!" He stuck the injured object out as far as it would go and squinted horribly in an attempt to see the damage. 

 

Doyle shuddered. "Put that thing back in your mouth, you're makin' the place look untidy. Go on, that's the whole point of the exercise: you're supposed to drink it while it is hot, not hang about till it cools." 

 

Bodie made a face, but drained the mug without any further protest and handed it back. Doyle retreated. The shower curtain fell back into place, and Bodie resumed his ablutions and consideration of his plans for later in the evening. Despite his opinion that hot whisky with sugar added was a nauseating concoction, he had to admit that the warm glow it had planted in his empty stomach was radiating outwards nicely to meet the warmth of the shower travelling inwards. 

 

He was beginning to feel much better already. Things could be looking up at last. 

 

Shortly the curtain was pulled aside again and Doyle reappeared; he too was naked this time. "When you've quite finished hangin' about in there, using up all me hot water, I'd like a shower too, y'know. No consideration, that's your trouble." 

 

Bode settled one lazy and appreciative eye upon the lean, muscular body he knew so well. "Why don't you just come in and join me?" 

 

For once Doyle refrained from the too obvious retort. "I thought you'd never ask," he said, and stepped in, using a bony elbow to good effect on Bodie's ribs. "Shift your carcass and let me at the water." 

 

Bodie obliged. In a very short time Doyle's close proximity and his twisting, unconsciously sensual movements as he soaped and rinsed himself, the intermittent sliding touch of skin on skin in the confined space, lit a small but growing fire in Bodie's nerve endings. He leaned closer and stroked his hands across Doyle's shoulders, then turned him gently before letting them drift down Doyle's back to come to rest in the hollow just above the lean buttocks. 

Doyle uttered a thick, husky sound deep in his throat, and moved forward the scant inch or so until their bodies were pressed tightly together from chest to thigh. He clasped soap-slippery hands on the back of Bodie's neck, and stretched the little distance necessary to kiss him deeply and with great attention to detail. Bodie opened his mouth to welcome the searching tongue, and the fire spread, centring in his groin. He felt himself lift and begin to grow, felt Doyle swell against him in response. Then Doyle was pulling back, his hands loosening from around Bodie's neck and sliding slowly down over Bodie's chest and ribs to skim with maddening lightness over his stomach and burgeoning erection. 

 

"Uh-uh! Not now...not here..." 

 

Bodie reached for him again, eyes hazed with rising desire. "Why not?" 

 

Doyle avoided his grasp and stepped out of the shower cubicle and wrapped a towel defensively around his waist. "Because I don't want to do it in the shower. Not tonight." 

 

Bodie banked down his arousal with difficulty. "What's different about tonight? You used to like doing 'it', as you so delicately put it, in the shower," he said. "Couldn't get enough of 'it' in the shower, if memory serves." 

 

Doyle grinned at him affectionately. "Give over, you great idiot! I said don't want, not don't like. I've got plans for later on, and I don't want them spoiled." 

 

"Plans?" Bodie raised an eyebrow, feeling his blood quicken again. That sounded very much as though they were both thinking along similar lines, a not unknown phenomenon in the circumstances. He turned off the water and emerged from the shower to filch a second towel from under his lover's fingers. "What sort of plans?" 

 

Doyle sighed. He padded damply over to the airing cupboard for a replacement towel and began drying his hair. "The sort of plans that require lots of energy," he said in muffled tones. "Since you haven't eaten all day, and since I didn't buy all that grub just to have it go to waste, I think you'd better stock up first. Can't 'ave you flaking out on me now, can I?" 

 

"Me? Flake out? That'll be the day, sunshine!" 

 

Bodie's stomach chose that moment to emit a loud grumble of complaint and Doyle poked it ungently with a long forefinger. "See what I mean? I don't intend taking any chances." He shrugged into his robe and headed for the door. "Food'll be on the table in five minutes." 

 

By the time that Bodie, dressed in fresh brown cords and a cream shirt, appeared in the living room the meal had been transferred from its containers in the oven onto hot plates, and Doyle was opening a bottle of wine. Bodie stared at him in feigned disapproval. 

 

"You planning to eat like that?" 

 

Doyle glanced down at his robe-clad body. "What's wrong with me? I'm decent, aren't I? Anyway..." he treated Bodie to a Doyle-special leer from head to toe and back again, raising goose bumps all the way, "... 

 

Putting clothes on is a waste of time and effort. Only have to take 'em off again shortly." 

 

"Oh? How shortly?" A shiver of anticipation ran up Bodie's spine at the heat of the expression in Doyle's eyes. 

 

"The sooner you sit down and eat, the sooner you'll find out." Doyle suited his own actins to his words, and repeated the leer - with interest. 

 

His body responding involuntarily to the stimulus, Bodie silently did as he was told. He knew what Doyle was doing; he had been on the receiving end of Doyle seductions before, but knowing did not make him any less susceptible. And Doyle was well aware of that fact. He knew exactly which buttons to push, and the effect he would get when he pushed them. He often played on that knowledge, as he was doing now and had done earlier, both in and out of those skin-tight jeans. Such teasing - and not all of it was on Doyle's side - was all a part of their relationship, and they both enjoyed it. 

 

As he ate, Bodie slowly revised his own plans for later to include a little Doyle-baiting, always a rewarding pastime given the ease with which he could generally get under Doyle's skin. In fact, it he was any judge of his lover's filthily inventive mind - and he believed he was - a little initial frustration would probably work wonders and do the little toad no harm whatsoever. 

 

When the meal was finished, when the last sliver of meat had been detached from its bone and consumed, and the last bean sprout and grain of rice chased successfully around the plate, Bodie tipped his chair back on two legs and smiled a smile of repletion. 

 

"That was fantastic, mate. I am stuffed!" 

 

Doyle leaned forward with his elbows on the table, and unleashed one of those heavy-lidded, smouldering, all enveloping looks that Bodie had once described as being guaranteed to curl the toes of a month old corpse. 

 

"Oh, you will be, lover, and that's a promise," he said throatily. 

 

Bodie tilted his chin up a couple of inches and looked down his nose. "Tch, Raymond! That's a very crude remark!" 

 

"Sorry," Doyle said, pseudo contrition oozing from every pore. "I didn't mean to upset your delicate sensibilities." 

 

Bodie smothered a grin. He pushed back his chair and stood, preparatory to clearing the table. "That's all right; you didn't, but only because I'm getting used to that sort of thing where you're concerned," he said dismissively. "Come on, let's get this lot cleared away and washed up. Then I'll make some coffee and we can get settled down, all nice and comfy, in good time for the start of the film." 

 

"What film?" 

 

Doyle's tone was much too innocent, confirming the suspicion that had been growing at the back of Bodie's mind. He assumed a hurt expression, one of his better efforts. "You can't possibly have forgotten the second half of your promise? The bit about the Steve McQueen film on the telly?" 

 

Doyle, who had indeed not forgotten, but had been hoping his intensive efforts at seductive distraction would make Bodie forget, groaned. He produced another smouldering look in a last ditch attempt to salvage the situation. "Wouldn't you rather go to bed with me?" 

 

The husky voice was like warm, soft velvet. Bodie, who was anything but corpse-like where his partner was concerned, fought to control curling toes and various other more insistent bodily reactions. Going to bed with Doyle, and what would happen when they got there, was something which he had been fondly anticipating all day, but it didn't do to let Doyle get away with his little games too often. 

"You little sod, you're trying to wriggle out of it!" he said. 

 

Doyle had the good grace to look slightly ashamed, and enough common sense not to try to deny the undeniable. He rose to his feet and came around the table. He slid both arms around Bodie's waist, and smiled an unconsciously seductive smile that was all the more effective because, unlike the previous ones, it was so purely spontaneous. His hands described small circles on Bodie's back, their warmth searing through the thin cotton shirt to his skin beneath and sending tiny shivers of pleasure rippling along every nerve ending. 

 

"Well, what else did you expect? You know that guy gets right up me nose. Come to bed, Bodie - please? I haven't been putting all of it on just to get out of watchin' the film; I do want you, you know that, don't you? It's been so long since we made love - seems like forever! And I've been dreaming about it ever since I got up this morning...what I'd like you to do to me, what I want to do to you... I want to screw you right through the mattress if you must know - right after you've done me. Come to bed with me, lover. Please? You know you want to." 

 

If there was anyone else alive who could be more persuasive than Doyle when he set his mind to it, Bodie had yet to meet them. But he had no intention of allowing himself t be persuaded just yet. At least, not quite so easily. 

 

"A promise is a promise!" he protested, preventing himself from reciprocating Doyle's embrace and giving in to his wheedling only with extreme difficulty. "You said you owed me..." 

 

"Oh, all right then!" Doyle dropped his arms and turned away, irritably conceding defeat. Picking up a stack of plates and cutlery, he headed for the kitchen. "If you're that determined to watch the ruddy thing, then that's what we'll do. I just hope you enjoy it!" 

 

Bodie followed with the remainder of the dishes, fighting to keep his face straight. Like taking sweets from a baby, this was. "I always do," he said smugly. "This'll be the fourth - no, the fifth time I've seen it. Great film! Soon know the dialogue off by heart, I will." 

 

There was a resounding crash as Doyle deposited his armful of plates onto the draining board with rather more force than was strictly necessary, or wise. His reaction elicited a concealed grin from Bodie. Nice touch, that; got him going perfectly. 

 

"Who's the priapismic monster now, then?" Bodie thought, recalling a certain gibe during the Ojuka affair. Do the little sod good trying to control his libido for a while. Not for too long, though. Bodie had no wish to deprive either of them of what they really wanted and needed, nor complete confidence in his own ability to hold out for any length of time against his partner. He loved him too much, and Doyle was too appealing, too damn sexy to resist. Bodie wanted him just as much as, if not more than, Doyle wanted him, but he did plan on getting at least a little revenge for the disasters which had befallen earlier, and also on disabusing Doyle of the notion that he only had to crook his little finger and he, Bodie, would come running. 

 

That was one truth he intended keeping to himself, for his own sanity if nothing else. If Doyle ever found out how much control he really had, he'd be unendurable! Bodie had not the slightest intention of watching all of 'The Great Escape', but making Doyle believe he was going to have to sit through every last minute of it was the whole point of the present exercise. 

 

The dishes washed and put away, in a somewhat huffy silence on the part of Doyle, they settled on the couch just in time for the opening credits of the film, with coffee to hand. Much to his unexpressed surprise, Doyle found himself hooked from the very beginning. The story caught his interest early on, and the presence of so many other characters made Steve McQueen's relatively small role more bearable; he wondered why he had resisted watching it for so long. His annoyance slowly waned, and even his desire to get Bodie into bed got put on hold temporarily as he was drawn into the battle of wits between the prisoners of war and their German captors and the need to know what happened next. 

 

For Bodie, on the other hand, there was no such problem. Having already seen the film several times he knew exactly what was going to happen, so he was free to concentrate on Doyle, and did so without the slightest compunction. 

 

When he had drained his mug of coffee, he set it down and watched and waited until the other man was completely engrossed in what was occurring on the TV screen, then he stretched his legs out comfortably and draped an arm around Doyle's shoulders. This produced the expected response of Doyle leaning into the embrace and relaxing in his usual boneless fashion. Bodie smiled quietly to himself. He gradually strengthened his hold, and some time and manoeuvring later had carefully rearranged himself into an almost horizontal position with Doyle tucked awkwardly against him. 

 

"For God's sake, will you sit still!" 

 

Doyle, who had been perfectly comfortable to begin with but now was not, wriggled irritably and resettled himself, folding his legs up onto the couch. He ended up half on the cushions and half lying on top of Bodie. 

 

"Sorry," Bodie lied, resting his chin on the curly head and wrapping both arms lightly around Doyle's chest. 

 

Having succeeded in getting his lover exactly where he wanted him, with easy access gained for a roving hand to most parts of the lean body, he allowed Doyle to become reabsorbed in the film before beginning a slow and calculated assault. One hand insinuated itself with care inside the towelling robe. It skimmed with insidious lightness over warm skin, from collarbone to ribs and back again. His thumb found a nipple, circling and teasing it to hardness on each slow caress. Doyle uttered a soft, pleasured noise deep in his throat and flexed his shoulder blades, pushing up slightly. 

 

Bodie smiled again, secretly. It was always the same; Doyle loved being touched. He reacted like a cat, almost winding himself around the stroking hand, always wanting more. And although his attention was still focussed on the television, his body's subconscious response was exactly what Bodie had expected. 

 

Bodie's tantalising hand began dipping lower and lower on every downward stroke. The loosely tied belt of the robe proved no obstacle, loosening further at only the slightest pressure. His fingertips grazed across Doyle's thinly fleshed ribs and drifted with exploring feathery touches down over his abdomen to where a warm softness nestled between his thighs. Bodie felt it throb and begin to lose its softness as it responded to the knowing caress of his hand. 

 

Doyle uttered another of those inarticulate, throaty sounds, and shifted his position. "Stoppit..." he protested, tongue saying one thing, body another. "...'S getting' to a good bit just now..." 

 

Bodie's wholehearted agreement with that remark had absolutely nothing to do with the events on the TV screen, and everything to do with his own body's answer to Doyle's response with one of its own. He retreated temporarily, his hand sliding upward to rest on Doyle's ribs again. He was suddenly acutely conscious of the weight and scent of the man in his arms; aware of the warm, very slightly damp feel of skin-over-bone underneath his hand and the steady, quickened rise and fall of Doyle's ribcage as he breathed. Aware too of the sudden, increasing constriction and heat at his own groin. 

 

All thoughts of teasing or revenge, of who should be ultimately responsible for getting whom into bed, vanished. All that remained was his love for this aggravating other half of himself; the love that had been part of him since long before the day, eight months ago, when he had finally recognised just what the strange mish-mash of emotions he had been feeling for Doyle for so long really was. The most astonishing part of the whole thing, as far as Bodie was concerned, had been the almost unbelievable discovery at the same time that Doyle actually loved him every bit as much as he loved Doyle. 

 

Even now, after proof had been piled on proof, he still found that fact difficult to swallow. Still found himself waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night thinking it had all been a dream; needing to reach out and touch and hold to reassure himself. 

 

He tipped his head sideways, so he could gaze at the portion of Doyle's face visible to him. Completely caught up in the action of the film, Doyle was oblivious of the scrutiny. After a moment, unable to stop himself, Bodie leaned forward to nuzzle gently with lips and teeth and tongue at a convenient ear. 

"Don't..." 

 

There was no real force or conviction to the protest, and Bodie ignored it. He added a couple of gentle gusts of warm, moist breath to the nibbling teeth and exploring tongue. His hand drifted again, returning with unerring accuracy to that softness he had found before: no longer quite so soft. He wrapped his fingers around its heat, stroking, and it began to swell and harden at his touch. Doyle whimpered. A long shiver rippled through him, and he twisted his head around and looked up. 

 

"Give over, will you?" he said, his breath catching. "I thought... Aaah...! You said you wanted to see this film..." 

 

"I lied." 

 

Bodie abandoned the now out of reach ear without a second thought, and took the opportunity offered to lay siege to Doyle's temptingly available mouth. A very long, very pleasant interlude ensued. When breathing became absolutely imperative, he came up for air to find a pair of green eyes, heavy-lidded and hazed with arousal, staring at him accusingly. 

 

"God, but I'm slow on the uptake today. You've been 'aving me on, 'aven't you?" 

Bodie nodded, blue eyes twinkling with amusement in contrast to the solemnity of his expression. 

 

Doyle groaned. "Would you believe I was actually enjoying the bloody film? Has anyone ever told you," he asked without rancour, "just what an unmitigated bastard you are at times?" 

 

"Frequently," Bodie told him. "But you love me in spite of it, don't you?" 

 

Doyle produced one of his deep-throated chuckles. "God 'elp me, I do, and it's at times like these I worry about me sanity, I really do!" He sucked in a sharp breath and closed his eyes briefly. "I wish you'd stop...doing that!" 

 

"Really?" Bodie watched the helpless reaction to his pleasuring hand. 

 

"No, dammit, not really!" Doyle groaned. "But if you...don't stop, I'm not goin' to last long enough to get off this bloody couch and we'll both be sorry. I want...us both to go together but I can't get at you with all...those fucking clothes on!" 

 

"Don't worry about it, sunshine," Bodie said, only too aware of his own condition. "If you were to go over the top this minute, you'd probably take me right with you every step of the way without a single touch." 

 

Doyle sat up abruptly, and looked and found the obvious evidence of Bodie's state of arousal that matched his own. He reached down and touched it with gentle, questing fingertips, feeling its heat and rigidity through the brown cords. Bodie drew in a ragged breath, his body quivering with sudden tension. 

"You managed to get turned on to that extent just from turnin' me on? Just from touching me?" Doyle whispered, awed. 

 

Bodie nodded silently, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. 

 

Doyle's eyes were suddenly very bright as he recognised yet again just how vulnerable to him Bodie had become, and the extent of the power he had acquired to hurt this man who was so important to him. "Oh, God!" He caught Bodie's face between both hands and pulled his head down to kiss him long and deep and fiercely, before drawing back and saying softly, "Come to bed with me, Bodie. Now! I want to love you like you've never been loved before - I need to love you, and this isn't the proper place for it..." 

 

"Promises, promises - always chock-full of promises, you are!" Despite the lightness of his words, Bodie's voice was husky with emotion. 

 

Doyle wriggled free and stood up, pulling the other man up with him. "Maybe. But this is one promise I can guarantee I'm going to keep, lover." 

 

In the bedroom he shrugged out of his robe in one smooth movement and slid under the duvet, watching avidly as Bodie undressed quickly. His urgency did not prevent his usual scowl of disfavour at the high, old-fashioned bed, nor the familiar complaint. 

 

"When are you going to get rid of this antique? I get a nose-bleed every time I sleep here." 

 

"I've told you before," Doyle said, "this bed's a family heirloom. Me Gran left it to me in her will. They don't make 'em like this any more." 

 

"They certainly do not," Bodie grumbled, climbing in beside his lover to the accompaniment of a cacophony of twanging from the springs, and a chorus of creaks and groans from the wooden frame. "Quite apart from needing a stepladder to get into it, this has to be the noisiest bed I've ever slept in. It sounds like a tone-deaf orchestra trying to tune up every time we move." 

 

"Listen, mate," Doyle told him, "in the old days people were a bit more refined and restrained about their lovemaking. They didn't leap about like bloody great elephants." 

 

Bodie looked suitably offended. "Oi! I haven't noticed much refinement or restraint coming from your direction either, sunshine. You can do a fair bit of leaping about yourself, y'know. Speaking of which..." 

 

Doyle reached for him, and then paused. "If the background music is goin' to be too much for you, we can always use the floor," he suggested with a grin. 

"'S too hard on the knees and elbows." 

 

"Gawd give me strength!" Doyle said with immense affection. "If moaning was an Olympic event you'd be a gold medallist. Just give over, will you, and come 'ere!" 

 

Bodie's answer to that demand provoked an accelerated climb of both Doyle's eyebrows into overhanging curls, followed by a "Tch! Tch!" of assumed disapproval. "Now who's bein' crude?" 

 

Those were the last coherent words Doyle spoke for some time. Not, unfortunately, for as long a time as he would have hoped or wished for: both of them were too aroused already, too urgent for completion, to be capable of much control or to last for long. They met in the centre of the old bed, and fell upon one another like starving men at a banquet. As they fought to assuage their urgency, the loving was fast and furious with nothing gentle about it, and over far too soon for any real satisfaction except relief from their overwhelming need. 

 

When Bodie's heartbeat had slowed to near normal and he was once again taking an interest in his surroundings, he found Doyle in his usual in-bed position: attached to him like an octopus, all arms and legs, head tucked underneath Bodie's chin and warm breath fanning out across his chest. Bodie sighed, and settled his own arms more comfortably around the lean body, running a hand up and over the prominently defined spine. Doyle wriggled even closer and planted a wet, open-mouthed kiss at the base of Bodie's throat. 

 

"'M sorry. Wanted to make it good for you, but...was too hot for it, too quick. I'm sorry." 

 

Bodie smiled indulgently. "Don't be. You weren't the only one, sunshine, were you? Was pretty speedy off the mark myself. Just so long as you remember you've still got a promise to keep..." 

 

Doyle rested his chin on Bodie's chest and squinted upwards, green gaze meeting blue. "Listen, mate, a Doyle promise is money in the bank. Just gimme time to get me breath back." 

 

"Think you'll be up to it? You sound pretty knackered to me." 

 

"I'll be up to it! Question is, will you?" 

 

Bodie chuckled. "Anytime you are, Superman!" 

 

He tightened his embrace, content for the moment to lie there holding everything in the world he cared about, and rolled over onto his back, taking Doyle with him. Doyle, in the process of rearranging the position of his head on Bodie's chest to his own satisfaction and not expecting the sudden movement, cracked his chin on Bodie's shoulder and bit his tongue. Painfully. 

 

He shot upright with a yelp and streaming eyes. "Clumsy great oaf!" 

 

"What's the matter?" 

 

"Made me bite me tongue, you idiot!" 

 

Bodie couldn't help it. He grinned at the peculiar mixture of pain and annoyance on Doyle's face. "Aaah! C'mere, sweetheart, and let me kiss it better for you," he said, in the tone of voice normally reserved for comforting slow-developing two-year olds, and pulled Doyle back down onto his chest, preparing to do just that. 

 

He was rewarded with a sharp dig in the ribs from an extremely bony elbow, and an irritated squawk of, "Gerroff! Lemme go!" 

 

Perhaps, considering the sort of day it had been until then and the catalogue of disasters they had lived through during it, what happened next ought not to have come as a surprise. 

 

Perhaps it - or something similar - even ought to have been expected. 

It was not. 

 

Doyle attempted to pull away again. Bodie held on to him, and the middle of the ensuing wrestling match was chosen by whichever of the Fates had been playing with them for the ultimate joke of the day. 

 

Just as the wrestling was beginning to develop into something much more interesting and pleasurable, Grandma Doyle's bed decided enough was enough and gave up the ghost. With two sharp cracks that sounded for all the world like gun-shots, accompanied by a final eldritch yowl from overtaxed springs, both bottom legs collapsed one after the other, depositing the occupants in a heap on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs and duvet. 

 

There were several moments of shocked silence and immobility before the enveloping folds of the duvet erupted, spitting out Doyle, who sat up and gazed at the remains of the bed out of eyes huge with an expression difficult to define. 

 

"Bloody 'ell!" he said, with almost reverential emphasis. 

 

Bodie sat up too, regarding his volatile partner warily. Damage to, or loss of, personal property was not something that appeared high on Raymond Doyle's list of 'Things I Most Enjoy In Life'. His Grandmother's bed had been personal property of a rather special kind, and it was undeniably damaged; in fact, written off might be a better description of its current condition, if Bodie was any judge of the matter. Therefore, if he knew Doyle half as well as he thought he did, that worthy's reaction to its destruction was likely to be loud - very loud indeed - and very long. 

 

He was right. Although not in quite the way he had expected. 

 

Doyle blinked, uttered a somewhat strangled version of one of his bathwater-draining gurgles, fell against Bodie's chest and for the third time that day dissolved into hysterical laughter. 

 

Utterly bemused, Bodie held him until the hiccupping, snorting and shaking had ceased, and Doyle looked up at him, wiping his streaming eyes on the back of his hand. 

 

"C-Christ, Bodie, me ribs don't half hurt!" 

 

"Why aren't you mad?" 

 

Doyle sniffed lushly. "Mad? What should I be mad about?" 

 

Bodie pushed him away to arms' length. "About your Gran's bed being demolished, that's what! Ever since you first got the fucking thing you've been bleating on about it being a family heirloom, and how you wouldn't part with it for the world. Now there it lies in smithereens, and all you do is have a fit of bleeding hysterics." A sudden suspicion dawned. "Don't tell me - it wasn't really your Gran's bed at all. You've been having me on all this time. You really got it from Oxfam or someplace." 

 

"I did not!" Doyle snorted indignantly. "Everything I told you about it was true." He hesitated slightly, and added, "Well - almost everything." 

 

"Almost?" Bodie enquired threateningly. 

 

Doyle sighed. "Okay, time to confess. I knew it would have to come sometime. Truth is, I hated the ruddy thing as much as you did; maybe even more, if you must know." 

 

"So why give me all that crap about not wanting to part with it?" Bodie demanded. "Why not just admit you couldn't stand the damn thing and get rid of it?" 

 

"Couldn't," Doyle muttered, looking thoroughly shamefaced and suddenly acquiring a faintly pink tinge to his complexion. "You started making snide remarks about it the minute you saw it, so I 'ad to stick up for it, didn't I? I let me tongue did my own grave and had to keep up the charade long after it got stale. 

 

Besides," he added glumly, "it was Grandma Doyle's pride and joy and if I had dumped it she would probably 'ave come back to haunt me. The original holy terror, she was. Could make a rabid Rottweiler look like a pussycat without even trying." 

 

"Give the wolf in Red Riding Hood indigestion, would she?" 

 

"With the greatest of ease," Doyle agreed, with a small grin. "Know someone like that, do you? We Doyle's always walked very carefully where Gran was concerned. I guess the habit clings, even though she's dead." 

 

"If she wouldn't have approved of you dumping it, what'd she think of this?" Bodie asked, indicating the wreckage around them. 

 

"Not a lot, I'm sure. But at least she can't blame me for it," Doyle said virtuously, a little too virtuously. "'Tisn't my fault if the damn thing was too ancient to stand up to a bit of normal use, is it?" 

 

Bodie stared at him, one eyebrow on the rise as a possibility began to blossom. Was there really a hint of Machiavellian smugness lurking behind that suspiciously innocent expression? Doyle had been very insistent on the 'Come back to my place' routine recently. He had also been even more than usually inventive in introducing variations of the more energetic forms of lovemaking, despite his earlier attempt to blame such carryings-on solely on Bodie. 

 

All that hardly constituted 'normal use', whatever way you perceived the meaning of the words, did it? 

 

Bodie mentally reviewed his hard-earned understanding of the way Doyle's mind worked, and decided the possibility was more likely to be a certainty. "You devious little sod!" he said admiringly. 

 

"I dunno what you're on about," Doyle told him, butter-wouldn't-melt-in-mouth expression firmly in place. He kicked the hampering bed linen away and leapt agilely to his feet. "C'mon, then, we'd best shift into the spare room. Can't stay here all night." 

 

Bodie's hand shot out and grabbed him by the ankle, almost making him lose his balance. "Why not? I've already had one bed collapse under me tonight and tip me out onto the floor, and I don't fancy having it happen again. Who knows what little delights the spare room may hold in store for us? I'm here on the floor, and here I'm going to stay>" 

 

"Thought you said the floor was too hard on your knees and elbows?" 

 

"Not if we bring the mattress down, sunshine. Bit of a tug is all it needs, it's half way here already." 

 

Five minutes later things were arranged on the floor to their mutual satisfaction, and Doyle was once more doing his impersonation of an octopus. After a few moments of peace and quiet, Bodie moved restlessly. 

 

"Ray?" 

 

"Mmmff?" 

 

"Seriously - you really certain you don't mind your Gran's bed being smashed like that?" 

 

Doyle groaned and sat up, using Bodie's broad chest as a prop for his elbows. 

"Y'know, mate, you get hung up on the strangest things sometimes. I don't know how you have the nerve to talk about me. No, I really do not mind about me Gran's bed bein' smashed. Not in the least! In fact, I'm actually quite pleased me Gran's bed 'as been smashed. It means I can stop feeling like Edmund bloody Hillary every night, maybe buy meself one of those beds with drawers in the base and get a bit of extra storage space at last. Satisfied?" 

 

Bodie nodded. Doyle prepared to lie down again. 

 

"Just one more thing," Bodie said. "Did you really set out to...?" 

 

"Oh God!" Doyle muttered. "When you get a bee in your bonnet, there's only one certain way to shut you up, isn't there?" 

 

He leaned down and smothered the remainder of Bodie's question in a deep, open-mouthed kiss. An indeterminate and very enjoyable time passed. When they surfaced again for essential air, warm and gentle fingers were entangled in Doyle's hair and Bodie's mouth had a soft, bruised look to it. His eyes gazed up from under heavy lids, the heat in them denying any claim that blue was a cold colour. Previous curiosity had been superseded by a more urgent need. 

 

He ran a delicately questing forefinger down Doyle's chest and drew small, tantalising circles around his navel. "About that promise you made me..." 

 

Doyle grinned. He settled more comfortably on top of the hard-muscled body of his lover, effectively trapping Bodie's roving hand between they. "Getting interested again, are we?" 

 

Bodie's heartbeat quickened. "Well, I know I am. How about you?" 

 

"I'm thinking about it." 

 

"Oh goody, I am pleased! Just don't get too cerebral, will you? I like plenty of action." 

 

"I know exactly what you like, lover, and that's what you're goin' to get. Every last bit of it." 

 

Luminous green eyes fixed unwaveringly on Bodie's face, Doyle moved the lower half of his body with careful deliberation and a wealth of suggestiveness. The reaction it evoked was immediate, instinctive, and utterly helpless. 

 

His chuckle, as he got down to work in earnest, was one of the filthiest Bodie had ever heard. 

 

 

THE END


End file.
